Autoresponder Series - getting them ready in advance

[Jennifer Nalleweg]

Hey everyone,

I've been focusing lately on my autoresponder series, getting it ready for my launch and creating the series for the people who sign up on my squeeze page, and another series for people who bought my product.

I know that it is important to try to send messages approximately as often as others in your niche (in my case it is normal to receive newsletters only once or twice a month - I'm in the fishing niche) because that's what the market is used to getting, so I'm going to stick to that schedule.

Is there a good rule of thumb as to how many newsletters I should have ready in advance of my launch? I've got about 8 done for my pre-purchase series and was wondering if that's a good number for now and to turn my attention to other things so I'm making the most efficient use of my time, or if there's a number that most people tend to create for each series so they're covered?

What do you usually do? Create them all at once, or add to them later, after your big launch has ended?

Thanks,
Jennifer

[Richard Legg]

Hi Jennifer,

The great thing about an autoresponder is that you can add content as you go.

It seems you've got enough to start off with anyway, especially if you're mailing out less frequently than in the IM niche.

What I do a lot of times is whenever I mail out a content piece to my list, I'll also go in and add that to the end of my prospect follow-up autoresponder series. (It always helps to have a link back to your sales site though if this is just a prospect list)

Pretty soon, your follow up series has grown to months or even a years worth of content that goes out automatically.

So all you really need is the initial few pieces of content and then just add the rest as you go.

Richard

[charleskirkland]

I agree with Richard on this.

But one question are you going to use single or double opts for you launch?

Thanks
Charles

[Jennifer Nalleweg]

Thanks Charles & Richard - sounds like a great plan to me.

Charles, I'm using double opt-ins at the moment. Feel that that's the best way to ensure that I'm not spamming people and that they're more of a qualified lead for me.

What's your thoughts on this?

Jennifer

[charleskirkland]

I'm stuck on this one issue.

I know it is better to have a double opt in then a single. But a lot of well meaning people just don't optin for what ever reason. I know I guilty of this for things I do want to know about.

I like single optin because the list will get bigger faster...more sales in the long run. But you will have a higher spam rating.

People always talk about you will have a higher value per vister with double optins...but you have fewer leads so that makes sense.

Case in point...learn from my mistake.

During the seocodebreaker launch I used single opts. Now I can't send any email with out getting at least a 0.40 spam complaint or higher. This means about 4 out of every 1,000 people think I have sent them spam.

Awber made me change to double optins for everything. I mean EVERYTHING.

I had been told by the sales rep that Awber was looking at making everybody get to double optins in the future.

There are times when I don't want a double optin and sometimes I want a double optin.

So I'm going to change to GR, ARP, EA or something else who is not so quick to force you to double optin.

[Jennifer Nalleweg]

I use 1shoppingcart for my autoresponder and they don't force you to double opt-in.

Yeah, it's a tough call on that one - faster growth vs. more spam complaints. Guess I'm a slow and steady wins the race kind of a gal Having to constantly switch services to keep ahead of the game sounds like too much of a pain for me. I like having all my things in one place for ease of use.

Jen

[Chris Douthit]

I prefer to use double opt-in on most of my sites. It is true your list will grow as much as 33% faster with single opt-in, but down side is your going to have more spam complaints and more bounce backs.

Personally I hate getting spam complaints, they are always a pain to deal with. Bounce backs can also begin to be a problem depending on how much server power you have.

Charles, that’s another reason why I don’t really like Aweber, when running your business having another company tell you how to do it rubs me the wrong way.

[Jennifer Nalleweg]

Which autoresponder do you use Chris?

[charleskirkland]

I have 2 Aweber acounts all IM related

I have 2 1shopping cart acounts. by the way there email deliverablity if very bad. This is for my niche sites

I just got a Getresponce account a few mins ago to replace my 2 aweber accounts.

Plus 1 email aces acount that I have never done anything with.

Charles

[Chris Douthit]

I run ListMailPro software on my own server. It allows me to do pretty much anything I want. Emails getting though also have a far higher success rate as they are coming from your own domain and not a pre-flagged mass email sending company.

Another reason why I like ListMail is because I can build my own opt-in form anyway I want, for example inserting into a flash application. That type of thing is banned in Aweber.